Also, New Zealand ISP gives its customers what they want, Isis discovers the power of branding, GameStop sets out to ruin video games, a potato salad is successfully funded through Kickstarter, and we all watch the 72-minute-long trailer for the 720-hour-long movie.

Zuckerberg Argues For Free Internet

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is calling for “basic Internet services” to be free and available to all. He makes his plea in an editorial for The Wall Street Journal, arguing that as the Internet will “help drive human progress” it should be accessible in the way 911 is accessible regardless of a phone plan.

This is a nice idea, but Zuckerberg doesn’t explain what he means by “basic Internet services,” and only briefly touches on how we, as a society, can make this happen. Big ideas are surely nothing without detailed plans.

New Zealand ISP Adds VPN To Its Service

An ISP in New Zealand called Slingshot has added a VPN to its service in order to allow customers to watch streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. The cleverly titled “global mode” reroutes traffic so that it looks like Slingshot customers are based somewhere other than New Zealand.

Netflix hasn’t yet launched in New Zealand, and Hulu is only available in the U.S. There are also plenty of other geoblocked services Slingshot customers will now be able to access by default thanks to using a VPN.

As this is straddling the line of legality, Slingshot suggests “global mode” is only intended for international guests staying in New Zealand. Of course it is.

Isis Rebranding To End ISIS Confusion

Mobile wallet app Isis is being forced to change its name to differentiate itself from ISIS ( the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Isis CEO Michael Abbott says the name has “become synonymous with violence,” hence the need to rebrand. A new name has yet to be chosen, but we humbly suggest avoiding rebranding as “Al-Qaeda.”

GameStop Keen On Exclusive Content

Any company that takes Gamestop up on this is publicly admitting its utter contempt for its customers.

GameStop has plans to offer more exclusive content for people pre-ordering video games from its stores in the future. This could mean GameStop “getting involved at the time of game development,” partnering with developers to insert content in games which will only be accessible to those who preordered through the retailer. Because what the games industry really needs right now more locked content included on discs.

72-Minute Trailer For A 720-Hour film

And finally, Ambiancé is a new film set to have a running time of 720 hours. That’s 30 days. Swedish director Anders Weberg has put the first trailer — lasting 72 minutes — online, with further, longer, trailers promised in 2016 and 2018. The full film will be released on December 31st, 2020, when it will be screened once in its entirety and then destroyed. Why? We honestly don’t know.

Your Views On Today’s Tech News

Should basic Internet access be free? Can you take Mark Zuckerberg seriously? Is the PC dead or just on life support? Is the Kickstarter potato salad the dumbest thing ever?

Let us know your thoughts on the tech news of the day by posting to the comments section below. Because a healthy discussion is always welcome.

...."other essentials such as food and TV." That's funny...made me bust out! TV is pretty far from essential. And free Internet is far from essential. Free Internet would most certainly come with no guarantees, so if you need to plug your oxygen machine into the Internet, you'd better pay for service.

So the question is would I sign up with Facebook to get free Internet? Sure, why not? If you want a service for free you have to sign up with whoever is providing the service don't you? Since the Internet is a two-way medium (unlike TV/radio) it is reasonable to expect to have to signup with someone. Unless we figure out how to hack together our own Internet using Ham radios or something.

Most (but not all) of the concerns over privacy with Google/Facebook is really paranoia. These guys mostly just want to know what you are doing so they can show you ads that are actually relevant to you. You still decide to buy something or not. Now, when the government gets involved, I start to worry...that's a different bag o' donuts all together, but it is already happening now and free Internet access from Facebook or Google won't make a bit of difference in that. The "experiments" Facebook did is somewhat worrying, since they "tweaked" what their users saw, but if you think the ISP Facebook would somehow filter your Internet access, well then you now are talking about Net Neutrality, another area that should concern us all regardless of who your ISP is, and whether free Internet materializes or not.

I don't like Zuckerberg....I think he's a punk. But I also wish I was him, 'cause who wouldn't want to be a billionaire? You guys can keep beating him up: I don't care.

The real question for you is, if you could make free Internet available to the masses, how would you do it?

It could work. We have examples of free-to-consumer services now, called Radio and TV. These are ad-supported services (through commercials). The parallels to wireless Internet access are easy to see, with mainly technical hurdles remaining to a feasible plan. Big companies with the most to gain and the deepest pockets would provide initial R&D followed by proof-of-concept infrastructure. Maybe spin-off a non-profit to run it, sign up other companies who see something to gain though advertising or just to promote corporate goodwill. Google and FB are already experimenting with WiFi balloons and drones to get around the "last mile" of access problem, so the R&D seems to be already underway. Maybe 10 years from now we will all have WiFi antennas on our rooftops along with our HDTV antennas.

I guess that is entirely possible. Countless surveys have seen people equate Internet with other essentials such as food and TV. So basic access paid for by advertising would definitely be of interest to a percentage of the population.

The question is, would you sign up to Facebook if that was a prerequisite?

Is Zuckerberg's "free" Internet going to be available only through a subscription to Facebook? If that is his idea, then I would rather pay for my 'Net and spare myself the "advantages" provided by Facebook. I have freed myself from the stifling embrace of Microsoft and will soon extricate myself from Google's tender ministrations. I am not about to let FB get its tentacles on me.

"Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is calling for “basic Internet services” to be free and available to all. "

Is this like arguing for cotton picking services to be free ? The U.S. had that in the south at one time, I do believe.

All services are obviously provided by other people. The demand that those services be free must necessarily impose a duty on those other people to provide those services one way or the other. It's the "other" I am concerned about in Zuckerberg 's demand/request. As for the "one way", my guess is that it requires the heavy hand of the state/government to make it happen.

The simple fact is that the services of people is not a free commodity and the demand that someone somehow make them "free" is absurd and many other things too I will not state here.

You make a good point. The only way Zuckerberg's calls for free Internet access for all sounds OK is if he is offering to provide it himself. Which he clearly isn't. And if he did then I suspect Facebook would experiment on everyone making use of it.